The impact of noise on productivity
February 12th, 2009 by Ingrid Cliff
Noise can severely affect a person’s productivity … or so I discovered today when at the end of the day very little was accomplished other than a thumping headache and great irritation. But I am getting ahead of myself …
As a freelance writer I enjoy relative quiet in order to work. Libraries with the warm welcoming scent of fresh books to explore are brilliant. Coffee shops out of peak times with only the quiet hiss of an espresso machine are also great. A home office – absolute bliss!
Which is why today when the gods of noise took up residence and circled my property it was so irritatingly annoying!
The neighbours had a bobcat digging trenches and then cement mixers pouring concrete over their new retaining wall. (Well, during the big storm in November, all of the Red Sea impersonating storm run off ran off past my door and demolished their wall, so I shouldn’t feel too bad about it … or so I told myself).
Across the road had chainsaws starting at 6.30am removing massive gum trees from their property. These went for about 5 hours straight only to be followed by tree mulchers belching and grinding up the evidence of any green leafy matter. (Well, the tree was massive and quite near the house and the neighbouring tree did crush the next door house in the big storm, so I shouldn’t feel too bad about it … or so I told myself).
The teenage boys up the hill, on their day free from school to pursue workplace traineeships, decided that really really bad heavy metal music was needed more than paid employment, so called in what they loosely describe as a band to inflict more auditory torture. (Well, I have memories of living as a teenager with a drummer in a dreadful heavy metal rock band and thinking the music was great, so I shouldn’t feel too bad about it … or so I told myself).
Why didn’t I move to quieter pastures? Well I stupidly kept telling myself … it will only be for a few more minutes before all will be returned to quiet. It wasn’t!
Finally we have peace and quiet in the neighbourhood, but my nerves are too raw to concentrate on the intricacies of writing long sales copy for a client, or completing an award nomination for another client.
So tonight I will blog, finish my newsletter and plan for a quiet day’s work tomorrow.
… Now if I can just find out who has that extremely loud canary with the big voice in the neighbourhood all will be well.
Until next time
Ingrid Cliff
We put your business into words
This entry was posted on Thursday, February 12th, 2009 at 7:43 pm and is filed under HR Manual, small business tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
